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Public reaction needed

Politician's staff salaries shoot up after election - but there is an upcoming by election where voters could make a statement

The results of the May 14 B.C. election had barely been confirmed when opposition parties and political observers like Black Press’s Tom Fletcher made note of big raises instituted by the B.C. Liberals for key politicial staff.

Ministerial assistants’ salaries ceilings increased from $94,500 to $105,000, the top salary for the premier’s chief of staff increased from $195,000 to $230,000, and the premier’s deputy chief of staff’s salary rose from $144,000 to $230,000.

So much for the Liberal party’s preelection rhetoric regarding the party’s priority to control spending.

The move may prove to be ill timed, however, as the public could show their discontent through the ballot during Premier Clark’s upcoming July 10 byelection in Westside - Kelowna

It will also be interesting to see what the Liberals prioritize in their upcoming core review.

It will be even interesting at the local level, since newly elected MLA, former Regional District Okanagan Similkameen Chair and Penticton Mayor Dan Ashton has been appointed Vice Chair of the Cabinet Working Group on Core Review.

Will the core review cut services to the average B.C. resident while ignoring  these generous, unwarranted,  appointed perks and salaries to government officials and insiders?

Ashton advanced himself politically out of a perceived reputation for fiscal responsibility during his years as Penticton mayor. Will he and the review committee now conveniently overlook these recent top pay increases, that were not part of the Liberal election platform, for the sake of political expediency?

Without a good deal of public backlash, it would seem to be a definite possibility.